I was sent these pictures of instruments that 'Chapi Chapo & les petites musiques de pluie' use. The music is very nice, ghostly cinematic sound - like a cross between Tunng and Yann Tiersann. I thoroughly recommend checking out their myspace site.

The readers instruments section gets a great new addition today with a possibly rare dual voice Busson flutina. This comes from Olaf G Aasland who wrote the rest of this.

A disintegrated Busson came up for sale on eBay, from an experienced seller in USA, with one endpiece and two mother-of-pearl “tone lids” missing, one of them also including the brass arm. I got it for USD 122.50.

It turned out to be a rather large specimen, the case measuring 39 x 15 cm. But it also had another feature, which I hadn’t seen in French accordions or flutinas before, an extra voice that could be switched on and off with a small “puller” at the end (which was also missing). It is not octave but tremolo tuned, in A. All reeds are brass/bronze and fitted individually into slots in the wooden sound boards (as is usual with these instruments as well as with English concertinas and American type reed organs). The inner reeds can easily be removed with a reed-hook (made from a screwdriver):

Each set of reeds is mounted in a case with sliding, leather covered lids. All reeds were removed, cleaned and replaced, two were broken (I will later rivet new reeds on to the existing frames).

After having made a new end piece with appropriate molding (spare parts from bandoneon restoring, which is my main interest), two mother-of-pearl tonelids and a stop puller, reassembly started. The main lid is fixed to the case with a sliding device, also missing, probably originally made of hard wood. I have made one from 2 mm aluminium that may be replaced by a wooden one later.

The exterior of this dual voice Busson is now more or less in place. What remains in order for it to get in playable condition is to change all the pads and adjust the 24 tonelids.

Here it is, along side with one of it’s Busson flutina sisters, and a “child” with its case from “Maker” J Gregory, Nottingham, who, according to some sources, imported Bussons from Paris and replaced the brass reeds with steel, my Tanzbär with rolls in the background, all on a 1828 table piano from Wood, Small & Co, Edinburgh and London.

So, has anyone else found a dual voice flutina ? We'd like to know just how unusual this one is. Any information appreciated.

I love it when I get comments and emails from you all, especially when you send me photos of weird and wonderful instruments that you own. Some of these are just so good that they need to be shared. So today I'm starting a new category on Squeezytunes for 'Reader's Instruments'.

First up is something really quite spectacular, a four octave mini grand piano courtesy of Drew Cardwell.

Click on the pictures for enlargements.

The piano is well made, not a simple toy. Unfortunately there seems to be no makers name ! Just this logo.

Here's a couple of shots of the mechanisms.

Here's the serial number.

If any of you have ever seen anything like this before or have any information, however small, then please, please let us know.